


Unhallowed

by lamia (kassidy)



Category: Frankenstein & Related Fandoms, Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Halloween Gift Exchange, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 04:12:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5115344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kassidy/pseuds/lamia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU of Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley--a (sort of?) Halloween story for my lovely Cass, who helps me to write even when I think it's not possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unhallowed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [no_one_in_particular](https://archiveofourown.org/users/no_one_in_particular/gifts).



Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay,

To mould me Man, did I solicit thee,

From darkness to promote me?

− _Paradise Lost_

 

 

 

THE JOURNAL OF VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN

OCTOBER 31, 17−

 

From graves and charnel houses I selected only the finest, strongest bodies to build my creation.

Or rather, parts of bodies.

Of course, my creation's face and brain were of paramount importance. I selected a young man of beauteous countenance, possessed of a strong jaw, a fine nose and black, thick hair. When I opened the mouth and carefully inspected the teeth, I found them white and lustrous. I was well-pleased.

The preparations are made. Tomorrow, at long last, I proceed.

My hand shakes with equal parts fervor and exhaustion as I put pen to paper, but I shall not find rest this night.

Two years I have devoted to this moment. With singular obsession I have advanced far beyond all others in the studies of natural philosophy and chemistry, and in particular the field of galvanism.

Tomorrow I apply the knowledge I have painstakingly acquired. In so doing I hope to solve that most elusive of mysteries: the secret of life itself.

 

 

NOVEMBER 1, 17—

 

I have done a most wretched, unconscionable thing, beyond even that which anyone reading this must suspect. I write of madness and the vilest, most unnatural obscenity. The depths of my perversion are such that I fear to put down this pen and face the consequences of what I have done.

I do not know how I will go on.

Hysteria, you may think, arising from the profound delusion this journal has detailed thus far: that I alone have the ability to bestow life upon what was once dead. And yet, I tell you that on this very day I have accomplished what none other has.

And worse, good God! So much worse.

My Adam has risen, and it is a horror, a caterwauling nightmare, brought to endlessly suffering life.

I did what it wanted. I had to. It suffered so.

I crouch in the corner like the madman I am, scratching away at this paper and starting at every small noise. The first day of November flees and in its place night deepens, pools in the room.

I glance over at the table. The creature lies naked, asleep, with only a thin blanket for warmth. It looks as it did before it stirred that first time—only now that peculiar self-possession, that animation of the soul that is apparent in a living body is apparent in this creature, even as it dreams.

Mere hours earlier had it taken its first slow, uncertain breath, afterward halting for an endless moment. My breath had stopped as well, watching.

Then the creature took another breath. Another and another, over the passing minutes slowly regulating.

My heart pounded with fierce exultation. I laughed. 

Its pale wintry eyes opened for the first time, gray and luminous as the lowering clouds outside the window. It looked at me, seemingly confused. It looked down at its naked form, alien and powerful, fully eight feet tall, stitched together by profane fingers.

"Who are you?" the creature had asked in a deep, ragged voice. "Where is this place?"

Suppose you were to awaken with limbs not your own? With the heart and torso of another, the whole stitched gracelessly together?

The creature ran his hands over the unfamiliar body, crying out in a bewildered, despairing voice. Its— _his_ beautiful form was huge and terrifying, and yet like a child he stumbled from the table, fell to his knees and covered his face. Tears trickled from between his fingers. He was inconsolable.

I went to my knees before him and embraced him. I wiped the tears from his eyes.

The creature returned my embrace, clutching me tightly, breathing hotly in my ear.

The perversion, the nightmare, the horror is not in his visage or his form—which despite his stitched wounds are quite beautiful, white and strange and haunted. The perversion is in him, and in me.

For he kissed my neck and next my lips, his mouth caressing, cool against my skin. His body trembled against me. He dared to touch his tongue to mine.

When I drew back, shocked, the creature held me fast. He pulled me to him again, panting, muttering, beautiful pale eyes still streaming.

How he suffers, remembering a body he no longer has and a family he can no longer claim.

When next he allowed me to withdraw, I watched the pale eyes. I saw the tragic, beautiful figure I had made, that I had caused to be, and I knew. I was and am lost, that I would love my creation in this unholy manner.

 _Elizabeth_ _,_ I thought, the last cry of a damnation entirely of my own making. Then obsession swallowed me utterly, and I kissed him back.

 

*

 

 

 


End file.
